"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Friday, February 12, 2016

DCCC Starts Up Red To Blue-- 2016 Looks Like Another Disaster For Them

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Yesterday the DCCC brought back their Red-to-Blue program, almost a decade after Debbie Wasserman Schultz had so damaged its brand by backing 3 Republican pals of hers while he was head of the committee that it was consigned to the deep freeze. One of the inherent problems with the DCCC and their Red to Blue Program is that they use it to interfere in primaries, sabotaging progressives on behalf of the corrupt conservative candidates they prefer seeing in Congress. Until Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen and Steve Israel were given control of the DCCC by Pelosi, it was DCCC policy to let the Democrats in districts pick their own candidates and to not get involved until after the primaries. Over the past decade the DCCC has become a primary contest progressive-killing machine.A few weeks ago we wrote about how they're working their magic in FL-10, where there are 4 viable candidates for a very blue district with no GOP incumbent. Rather than let the voters decide, Steve Israel and his sock puppet, Ben Ray Luján, have decided that the most conservative of the 4, Val Demings should be the candidate. They have endorsed her, helped her raise money, pressured Members of Congress to contribute to her campaign and bad-mouthed the other candidates. Luján and Pelosi are refusing to take action against one of their operatives, Jermaine House, who told a reporter in the district that one of the more progressive candidates, the openly gay one, Bob Poe, "does not have the right racial makeup for the district. I was stunned. The district is 27.1% voting age African-American, 22.8% voting Hispanic, 44.3% voting age white and I was unaware Pelosi countenanced this kind of racial game-playing. Her employee, House, told the reporter-- and I confirmed the exact quote again yesterday, that the DCCC "will never support Poe because he's white."Horrifying! But the e-mail I got from Ben Ray yesterday was any better. "The DCCC just named Monica Vernon to our Red to Blue program," he wrote in big bold type, neglecting to mention that Vernon is a "former" Republican, who, along with her husband-- still a Republican-- have given thousands of dollars to GOP candidates and that she's running against the former Speaker of the Iowa House of Representatives, Pat Murphy, a very accomplished progressive. "The DCCC’s Red to Blue program supports Democrats running in Republican-leaning districts across the country," continued the deceptive Luján, who neglected to mention that the district is not a "Republican-leaning district" but one with a D+5 that Obama won both times, in 2008 with 58% and in 2012 with 56%. Are all the Red-to-Blue candidates are patently horrible as Vernon? Not every single one-- but many of them are-- but what would you expect. The Red to Blue co-chairs are Blue Dog Cheri Bustos (IL) and New Dem Denny Heck (WA), two of the worst Members of Congress themselves are eager to find other crap politicians like themselves. Before Heck was elected he was a rich, grubby hack with a very flexible set of ethics and thoroughly conservative values.The DCCC divided the districts into 3 categories-- full-on Red-to-Blue; districts with primaries that they can't interfere in without causing an internal civil war-- like in NY-01, where Steve Israel is backing Anna Throne-Holst, a non-Democrat he has the hots for, and the New Dems and multimillionaire Jared Polis are backing venturer capitalist David Calone, a former member of the board of Long Island's most hated institution, the local Power Authority (LIPA)-- and Red to Blue "emerging races group," an insulting and arbitrary designation that, for example, includes Carol Shea-Porter. Here's their 16 Red-to-Blue candidates:

• CA-24- Salud Carbajal (currently represented by retiring Democratic Rep. Lois Capps), so not "red-to-blue" at all, but consistency isn't something the DCCC is known for, other than the consistency of corruption, of backstabbing progressives and of losing races. Carbajal is a good candidate but there are 4 good candidates in the race.• CO-06- Morgan Carroll (currently represented by Republican Rep. Mike Coffman). Good endorsement.• FL-10- Val Demings (currently represented by Republican Rep. Daniel Webster). Terrible endorsement.• FL18- Randall Perkins (currently represented by Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, who is mounting a Senate run). The DCCC chased a better and more electable candidate out of the race by backing multimillionaire Perkins and there are two other Democrats running.• FL-26- Annette Taddeo (currently represented by Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo). Excellent endorsement for a change, especially since former Congressman Joe Garcia, a New Dem and failed and corrupt one at that, is running against Annette.• IA-01- Monica Vernon (currently represented by Republican Rep. Rod Blum). Worst DCCC pick of 2016 so far. Don't these assholes ever learn? In 2002 they supported a Bettendorf City council member, a former Republican over progressive ex-Congressman Dave Nagle and-- of course-- lost the district. They want a repitition?• IL-10- Brad Schneider (currently represented by Republican Rep. Robert Dold). Terrible pick for several reasons, not least of all is that Schneider was defeated because he was terrible, very conservative and Wall Street-oriented and hated by local Democrats and because the DCCC could have actually turned the district blue with Nancy Rotering, the other candidate they're trying to deep-six.• ME-02- Emily Cain (currently represented by Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin). Typically worthless EMILY's List crap candidate; not as bad as Monica Vernon, but approaching that.• MI-01- Lon Johnson (currently represented by Republican Rep. Dan Benishek). Active primary between two bad candidates.• MI-07- Gretchen Driskell (currently represented by Republican Rep. Tim Walberg). So-so candidate from what I can tell so far.• MN-02- Angie Craig (currently represented by Republican Rep. John Kline). Good endorsement.• NJ-05- Josh Gottheimer (currently represented by Republican Rep. Scott Garrett). Terrible Wall Street shill.• NV-03- Jacky Rosen (currently represented by Republican Rep. Joe Heck). There are half a dozen Democrats in a primary.• TX-23- Pete Gallego (currently represented by Republican Rep. Will Hurd). Extreme right-wing Blue Dog whose only worse feature is his incredible corruption-- perfect DCCC candidate.• UT-04- Doug Owens (currently represented by Republican Rep. Mia Love). What a waste of money this rathole district is! Obama only scored 30% of the vote there against Romney.• VA-10- LuAnn Bennett (currently represented by Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock). Ex-congressmen's third wives are a thing? Well, at least we know they're loaded from all the bribe money he sucked up from the Military Industrial Complex

There are districts whose primaries they don't want to interfere in-- FL-13 (Jolly), NV-04 (Hardy), NY-01 (Zeldin), NY-24 (Katko) and PA-08 (Fitzpatrick)-- and then there are ten more districts that they call "secondary."So, let me reiterate what I've said a few times before: the DCCC will never win back the House. If Bernie or Hillary has a tsunami victory over Trump or Cruz or Ryan it won't matter. DCCC candidate recruitment is so bad that under the current regime, it won't happen in 1,000 years. But if Pelosi were to step away from the sip cup and let someone competent like Keith Ellison, Ted Lieu or Mark Pocan fire the entire staff, clean out the remnants of Emanuel, Van Hollen and Israel and start from scratch, the Democrats would be back in the majority in ONE CYCLE. It's a shame that Pelosi has some psychological fear of being Speaker again-- the only reason she keeps hiring incompetent losers to run the committee; she should just let it go.